


Work call

by Zoya113



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: COVID 19, F/M, Shenanigans, online work, quarantining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23543023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya113/pseuds/Zoya113
Summary: CCRP shifts to online calls during work hours while in quarantine. Nothing goes smoothly.
Relationships: Emma Perkins/ Paul Matthews, Mr Davidson/ Carol
Comments: 3
Kudos: 64





	Work call

**Author's Note:**

> Everything is based off rl shit I’ve put up w in my zoom classes anyways wash ur hands and stay inside

Paul didn’t really see how this was going to work in the slightest. Not only did he doubt Mr Davidson’s technical savvy, but he also hated being on camera. 

It made him flinch when his reflection showed up on his laptop. He didn’t have a proper webcam so the image had all of two pixels. Awful quality and yet it still managed to show off how red his skin was and how bad the bags under his eyes were. 

He hovered over the button to accept the call because he didn’t want to be the first one in the call with Mr Davidson, but he didn’t want to be late either, so the second the time hit 12, he joined the call. 

“Oh, it’s Paul!” Mr Davidson paused whatever he was talking about to greet him. 

“H-hi,” he stammered, not expecting to be called in. He pulled his chair in in an attempt to fill up more space on his camera and block out the messy living room in the background. 

“Paul!” Came Melissa’s secondary, yet much more enthusiastic greeting. She had proper lighting in her apartment so his eyes went to her first. She was fully dressed up, blazer and make up and everything. 

Instinctively he drew a hand over his face to feel the slight stubble showing up. Should he have put his suit jacket on? But as he started to skim through the other faces in the conference call it turned out it was just her. In fact, it looked like Charlotte hadn’t even gotten out of bed. She had framed the camera poorly so her face took up most of the shot, but he swore she was in her dressing gown. 

Mr Davidson carried on with his introduction to the conference call as Paul ran through the attendance of employees in the call. He grinned when he saw Alice loitering behind Bill’s chair. His friend’s microphone was muted because Alice was clearly explaining to him how to get it to work properly. She shot him a wave when she saw Paul though, pointing for her father, who then waved too. 

Melissa, who couldn’t tell who he was waving at waved too, and with a big smile Charlotte joined in. 

“What?” Came Ted’s voice, giving one awkward wave when he noticed everyone else was doing it. 

“Guys,” Mr Davidson interrupted. Paul noticed he was not waving because he was holding someone’s hand off camera, and therefore had no free hands to wave with. “This is all very interesting stuff isn’t it? We truly are in a new age. Now, Melissa, what were we just talking about?” He asked, seemingly forgotten the topic. 

“Uhhh,” Melissa leant in as she clicked through her tabs for what Paul assumed was a word document. “You were talking about implementing regular meetings, you needed the IT group to figure out how to create a link for a regular meeting time.”

“Yes!” He began triumphantly as the memory came back to him. “Paul, Charlotte, Bill, can you handle that?”

Paul nodded, but he wasn’t sure how he’d work it out. He let Mr Davidson continue, muting himself so he could sigh. Emma was still being sent to work despite all this, and she wasn’t even getting hazard pay. Not only did that suck for her but he didn’t want to have to social distance from his girlfriend. 

Checking his appearance in the camera carefully he snaked a hand down to his pocket to grab his phone, realising it didn’t show up in his shot. With some relief, he began texting Emma.   
‘Work busy?’ 

‘Work weird’   
‘People coming in trying to panic buy coffee beans and our shitty pastries. Truly the end of the world lmao’ 

‘Just stay safe please Emma’

‘Sorry i can’t text :( Nora says we gotta wear gloves n they make for shitty texting’  
‘omg covid 19 is a conspiracy to kill screen time lmao djabfb’ 

With a smirk he shut his phone off, one hand slipping over his mouth to hide his grin from the camera. To make up for a visible lack of participation in the call he leant in like he was reading through notes, but he was just skimming through the boxes again. 

“Oh,” Mr Davidson paused his speech as the boxes shifted around. “Charlotte can you fix that?”

It seemed whoever was moving the most or speaking the loudest earned the main frame of the setup, and one of Charlotte’s cats had taken to sniffing at the mic and camera, which threw the whole system off. 

“Sorry,” came a muffled apology. 

“Hello kitten!” Melissa giggled, “no, keep him on!” She insisted. 

“Oh the cats are still getting used to this. They love having company at home all day! They’ve been sitting with me all morning,” she recounted. 

“Ah, lucky,” Melissa glanced over her shoulder. “My cat’s just been having tantrums because I’m not paying attention to her.” 

“What’s this meeting for?” Ted grunted, and as Mr Davidson fought to get the meeting back in focus Paul noticed Ted wasn’t into it at all. If he listened close enough he could tell Ted was watching a movie on the other side of his camera. He was at his couch and everything. 

Paul wanted to laugh at those sweet little insights. It was sort of nice to zone out and look at all the other cameras, it was like a very safe spy mission. 

Alice had left Bill’s frame, and Bill had returned to sipping at his coffee. He felt pretty lucky for him, the lockdown had occurred when Alice was in his custody. 

Ted had zoned out. They had definitely lost him, he was watching something on the other side of his camera. 

Charlotte was very contently stroking one of her cats on her lap, her eyes half shut and a tea cup in her other hand. She looked far too relaxed, it made Paul feel bad for being so stressed about it.

And he couldn’t tell if Melissa was listening very intently or just staring at her reflection, but occasionally she would lose her attention to something over her shoulder, and would spin around in her office chair to look at whatever it was. 

“Melissa do you need a second?” Mr Davidson asked. 

“Oh I’m sorry I-“ she paused, glancing over her shoulder and then putting herself on mute to call something out, she looked anxious. 

“Do you need to do something?” He questioned. “What’s that noise?” 

“Uh, I’m sorry,” she apologised again, fixing her hair. “My cat’s kinda having a tantrum back there ‘caus I’m paying attention to her. Sorry. She’ll be fine, I’m listening, promise.” 

“Uh, okay,” Mr Davidson cleared his throat. “I’ve lost my place again. Where was I Melissa?” 

She paled. “I’m sorry. I was-“

“Okay. Alright. Does anyone remember?” Paul watched slowly as everyone seemed to turn away, pursing their lips shut. “Oh, well.” 

“You were talking about problem with the quarterlies?” Someone chimed in, who he could only assume to be Carol. 

He watched Mr Davidson turn to her with surprise, a smile spreading over his face just at the sight of her. “Well maybe I should be giving you Melissa’s job, cinnamon,” he grinned. 

“Please don’t,” Melissa’s voice came through timid enough to imply she couldn’t tell whether or not it was a joke, and honestly Paul couldn’t tell either with the way Mr Davidson lauded Carol like that. 

“You just make it sound so interesting, sweetheart.”

Paul took out one headphone so that he didn’t feel like he was intruding. He picked up his phone again.

‘yeehaw Zoey’s got a song for being quarantined’   
‘ofc’   
‘We hate a theatre major why can’t she just shut up?? It’s cus customers can’t legally come into the store w/o getting axed by the cops’ 

‘Ugh, I cant imagine how bad that must be.’ 

Paul looked back up at his screen, at least watching his boss seduce his offscreen wife was easier than being trapped in the Beanies’ theatre. 

He slipped out of her contact for a second to find Ted. 

‘Hey what’re you watching?’ 

He saw in real time as Ted picked up his phone, squinting to see if he could see Paul’s phone in his shot. 

‘It’s friends reruns on channel 9’ 

Nice. That’d be a little easier on the eyes. If he leant back far enough in his chair he could see the TV from here anyways. 

Quite honestly, if this chat went on much longer Charlotte would probably fall asleep, so it was a weight off everyone’s shoulders when Bill cleared his throat.   
“Mr Davidson?” 

“Oh!” He snapped back to his camera, rubbing his cheek. “That’s right. Hold on, alright nutmeg, I just have to finish this call okay?” He leant half out of the frame and she leant half in for a kiss before turning right back to his camera like that had never happened. “So ideally everything will resolve itself by the next quarter, of course, how do the stats look Melissa?” 

She blinked, frowning. “Uh, they’re kinda plateauing.” 

“He means the numbers,” Ted chimed in like he was paying attention. 

She started an anxious laugh, tapping her paper with her finger. 

“Are they bad?” Charlotte’s brow knitted. 

“Uh, no! I don’t think so, they’re uh, right now we’re at god- do you just want me to share my screen? Would that be easier?” 

Mr Davidson looked puzzled. “Do you have them?” 

“What’s the problem?” Bill added. 

“I do, I promise. It’s six-“ she stopped again. “Sixty five thousand?” 

“You mean six hundred fifty thousand?” Ted had scratched down the number on paper beside him. “What’s sixty five thousand?” 

“I’m not good with big numbers! You’re the accountant!” Melissa spat back in her defence. 

“Well how’ve you been doing this at meetings then?” Ted gave a chiding look. 

“Mr Davidson always reads them out because we’re in the same room!” Her face was red, and Paul switched his microphone off to chuckle. 

“Yeah but surely you know how to count, Melissa. How to read numbers? Are you just playing?” Ted pressed, maybe because he knew it was bothering her. 

“Stop bullying me! I am very stressed! I can’t do the numbers okay? And my cat is- oh my god. I have to-“

“Yeah, Melissa why don’t you go deal with that?” Mr Davidson waved her off but she had already taken out her headphones and left the frame. 

“Okay. Well, let me see if I can figure out how to do this...” Mr Davidson trailed off. “I can split everyone up into separate break out rooms. See if you can work on those issues, okay?” 

Paul had zoned out. He didn’t know what problems he had to work on but he clicked on the pop up quickly so he wasn’t the last one in the main chat. He relished in that moment of silence from the call until the new, much smaller room popped up. That meant he actually had to participate, but fortunately he was only in with Bill and Charlotte. 

“So did anyone catch what we had to fix?” He began sheepishly. 

“Oh no, I’m sorry,” Charlotte chuckled. “I’m so comfy I’ve almost slipped off to sleep,” she rubbed her eyes. 

“Well I guess that’s the good thing about online work,” Bill gave his signature dad laugh. “Alice has been going right back to sleep after some of her classes, I’ve finally gotten my afternoon naps back.” 

“Oh that’s lovely Bill!” Charlotte purred. “The cats have been loving it too, they’re all over me, look, I have Patches here right now.” She glanced down at the tortoiseshell, “say hello, Patches,” she gave the cat a little pat on its head. 

“I don’t know. I’m not a fan. It feels really weird to do it all digitally? I need to do something with my hands so badly,” he snorted. “Was it the meeting scheduling thing?” Paul suggested. 

“Sure. We can start on that!” Bill gave a thumbs up, leaning into his computer. The typing of his keyboard was audible, a proper clacking with each key. It actually looked like the rhythm of it was putting Charlotte to sleep. 

Paul sat there. It was hard when he couldn’t see everyone else’s screens. 

“Hey!” The screen rearranged itself as Melissa’s box joined the call, the motion of her spinning around in her office chair bringing her screen to focus. “What’s up!”

“Do you know what we’re supposed to be doing?” Paul asked. 

“Why’re you in this call, Melissa?” Bill asked. 

“Uh, one, I don’t know, and two, because I have admin power baby, and I get to go to any breakout space I want. Ted told me to stop bothering him so I came here!”

“To bother us?” Paul snorted. 

“No, to supervise. Ted’s just being mean. Did you guys come up with anything?”

“Well we don’t know what we’re working on,” Charlotte confessed. 

“Ugh,” Melissa bit down on her thumb. “Something about doing this online totally bombs by concentration.” 

Paul nodded, for him, something about doing it online made him incredibly sleepy.

“Hey dad?” Alice’s voice piped up from Bill’s mic, and everyone went quiet. “The internet’s really slow again. I can’t get into my classes,” she padded back over, leaning over the back of his chair with a frown. 

“Hello Alice!” Charlotte came too close to her camera as if she couldn’t see clearly. 

“Hi, guys,” Alice gave a shy smile. She clearly just wanted to go back to her class. 

“Did you close all your tabs?” Bill asked. She nodded. “Is your phone off the internet?” 

“Yeah but it won’t start. It’s going so slow and I have to be in there or otherwise they’ll mark me late and it’ll mess up my grades and I don’t want to be in trouble!” It was clearly bothering her but she was trying not to make a sense while she was on camera. 

“Oh, uh,” Bill turned back to the screen. “I’m sorry guys, I think I’ll have to get off the call. Alice needs to go to class. Is that okay?”

“Of course!” Charlotte nodded. “Bill, you go okay? Paul and I can figure this out!” 

They could not. Once Bill had gone they just stared at the camera in silence. God, online work just wasn’t going to cut it. 

The silence was only interrupted by the slight ringing of a bell before Melissa’s cat launched herself onto her laptop with an indescribable noise from the secretary. 

“Oh,” Paul pursed his lips shut. Surprised this was the first time they had seen her make an appearance. 

“Sorry. She’s clingy when I’m home.”

Charlotte giggled. “Not in the mood to just sit down?”

“I wish.” Melissa’s cat was pacing back and forth in front of the camera, ramming her forehead into Melissa’s palms and occasionally her cheek for some attention. Despite all this, Melissa still kept an effort to appear professional. “So what’re you guys supposed to be doing again?” 

“What’s happening in here?” The three of them let out a surprised yelp as Mr Davidson joined the call. 

“Hello, Mr Davidson,” Melissa scooped up her cat to get her off the camera, but she bounced back up onto the table the second Melissa put her down. 

“Hey Charlotte, Paul, do you two want to see something?” He asked.

Paul felt like this was a trap. “Yes?”

“Look.” From his lap he produced a kitschy looking toy bear. “Carol got this for me last year. His name is Jim.”

“Oh, that’s nice, what about him?” Charlotte blinked. 

Mr Davidson chuckled. “Well usually he sits on the couch but now that I’m home I figured I would bring him along. She bought him for me when she was travelling last year!” He propped the bear up on the bench. “Melissa, is that your cat?”

“Yes, but I cant make her go away.” 

Mr Davidson laughed. “Well as long as she’s stopped having a tantrum, right? Hey, Carol sweetheart, come look at Melissa’s cat!” 

Paul withdrew his attention again, returning to his phone. 

‘People rlly thing that bc they don’t have to look me in the eye to order they can can buy like twenty billion add ons’  
‘Honestly I’d rather start doing crack than drink whatever this guy is ordering’  
‘If I was pissed today I’d prob spit in it but what if I’m asymptomatic n gave this poor guy the virus’   
‘He didn’t tip tho so like maybe’   
‘FJSNFHSJJNDN weening out the assholes from society’

‘Does the drink at least look cool?’ Paul asked. 

‘No I mean at first it was pink but now it’s literally grey I’m not fucking around this looks like cement I’ll send u pics’ 

Ted was texting him too.   
‘Did you have the pleasure of meeting Jim?’ 

‘Just now. I think it’s kind of sweet!’ 

‘Well did you at least put friends on?? They just said something REALLY funny’

‘No sorry I didn’t :( did you hear by chance what we were supposed to be doing right now?’ 

‘Ugh you’re fucking useless Paul’  
‘And jfk no we don’t even know what we’re doing’ 

And then the photo of the drink came through. The consistency almost made Paul gag, and that made him laugh. 

“What’re you laughing at?” Mr Davidson asked. “Care to share with the class, Paul?” 

Paul dropped his phone. “Uh. Sorry I just- I was thinking of something funny.” 

“Okay, well you guys keep up the work. I’ll come back and check in later, I want it taken care of by the weekend.” 

Well that was menacing, especially considering they didn’t know what they were doing, but after Mr Davidson left they all returned to their phones.

‘Man I hate this >:(‘  
‘Boo hoo what will the world do w/o their Beanies coffee man I just wanna go home’

Paul didn’t even know how long he was speaking with Emma for but when she had to put her phone down for the next order he glanced up. “Did we lose Melissa?” 

“Huh?” Her head popped up from the corner of her screen. She had a habit of changing the way she sat about every twenty seconds but she had vanished for a second. 

“Oh, you’re here. What were you doing?” 

“I was just sitting down kinda low.” She demonstrates that by disappearing again, sinking down into her chair until she was out of frame. 

“We can’t see you, Melissa, just your cat. You sit funny.”

She sat herself back up again. “I can’t sit normally if I’m not in an office chair.” 

“Like the way you sit at work is normal?” Paul teased. 

“Normal-er than this apparently!” She slumped again, resting her head in her hands as the conversation came to a natural lull. No one knew what to do and everyone was too tired to work it out. 

And then Ted sent him a link.   
‘Dude I’m just gonna stream this episode do u wanna join in I’m bored’ 

That was a pleasant surprise. He supposed in a quarantine there would be nothing better to do though. 

‘Yeah I’ll join in, can I send the link to the rest of the gang?’ He has already done that, actually. And he was opening another tab on his laptop.

“We’re gonna watch friends?” Melissa frowned. “We should watch like... Dr Phil. Isn’t that on about now?”

“Oh I like that man,” Charlotte nodded, trying to work out the link. 

‘Oh you weren’t even gonna wait for my permission? This could’ve been a bro hangout’ Ted text him back as he saw Melissa and Charlotte’s names appear on the streaming tab. 

‘Sorry Ted :(! I’m not sending it to anyone else, promise’

‘God why not just send it to Emma and we can put on a show for the whole of Beanies smh man’ 

He shouldn’t tempt him. This quarantine just made missing Emma during the day so much worse. ‘Sorry man I’m not sending it to anyone else promise’

‘Nah go ahead, whatever. The more the better or something’  
‘Just don’t send it to the boss, man’


End file.
